I cooked a lot over spring break. Being without a kitchen at UConn makes me miss rotating meat over a fire. As convenient as buffet-style dining halls are, it’s odd eating things that were cooked out of my eyesight. I doubt the cooks spit in the food, but I like to be the one making my meals.

Wednesday night my girlfriend was visiting and was going to meet my family for the first time. I decided to put together another nice meal for the occasion. I decided on halibut, a maple syrup squash dish, and salad. Everything was going lovely, the halibut juicing up, the squash browning, until I decided to toast some French bread to go with the squash dish. The halibut and squash took up all the oven racks so I, stupidly, rested the pan of bread directly on the bottom coils. I assumed that since the oven was on “Bake,” only the top coils would be working. This was not true. Within five minutes I smelled something burning. I opened up the oven and was greeted with billows of smoke followed by the ringing of fire alarms.

When the fire alarms in my house go off we receive a call from the alarm company, just to make sure we’re not dead.

**Ring**

“Hello?”

“Hello, Mr. Immer? This is [blahblah] Alarm Company. We just received noticed that your fire alarm went off, are you aware of this?”

“Yes I’m aware. I burnt bread.”

“Burnt bread? Oh.”

“Yep, stupid I know. I’m sorry”

“Well, just to let you know, we’ve dispatched fire trucks to your house as protocol.”

“Lovely, thank you.”

Three minutes later two very large fire trucks roared down my street and into my driveway. Both trucks were filled with fireman, suited up, ready for action. A plump fireman with a grey mustache got out and greeted me.

“What’s the problem?”

“I burnt bread.”

“…Burnt bread? That’s it?”

“Yep, that’s it.”

“Well, do you need help getting the smoke out?”

“Nope, thanks though.”

The firemen probably made jokes about me on the way back to the station for making them put on fifteen-pound suits and drive halfway across town. My girlfriend and sister laughed at me throughout the ordeal, and with good reason. Burning bread is a silly ordeal and is made even sillier when a fat man scoffs at you for wasting his time.